I have trouble making friends and keeping them.

Sometimes I am not tactful and bad at reading people, leading to awkward situations. I think the root of my awkwardness is my lack of comfort in social situations. Because I find it hard to relax, the things I say are somewhat jumbled and different from my intent.

What feelings arise? 

I feel ashamed and often embarrassed. Sometimes I feel as though I can’t make friends because there is something wrong with me or how I think.

How does it affect you? 

It causes me to doubt the friendships I have and even my own personality. It causes me to consistently hold back from friendships, maybe worsening the problem.

What is your part?

I’m keeping myself from relaxing because I’m so worried that I’ll say the wrong thing.

What are you learning about yourself, others, the situation? 

I’m learning that I say jokes that aren’t funny. In retrospect, sometimes I offend people without meaning to.

It’s difficult for me to predict how someone might respond to something I say leading to a reaction that is different than what I’d hoped for.

I’m uncomfortable talking to people I’m not very close to and being unsure about the limits of our friendship.

I think it’s hard for me to be a good friend when I’m always guarded and can’t relax when I’m talking to someone. When I do talk, I worry about how what I said affects another’s feelings about me. Sometimes I worry that I’ve ended the relationship/friendship by making the person think I’m weird.

I’m learning that I don’t talk to others about these things.

I don’t treat myself too well. I treat others as well as I can.

My behavior makes friendship difficult.

When I’m upset feeling ashamed or embarrassed, I find comfort in my books, cats, and pirated films.

I’m learning that I become closer to others when I learn more about them. What does not help is when I distance myself from others.

Much of it started recently, though in elementary school I only had one friend with whom I related on a deep level with and understood inside and out. The problem with that was that I never started learning how to interact with casual acquaintances, as I had none. After the big move, I had a single friend throughout middle school as well, and am only now expanding my circle.

What can you shift or turn around in your thinking or feeling?

I can start looking at my relationships differently. I can force myself to calm down when I’m not with someone I know well and realize that little things aren’t a big deal.

How do you choose to work with your difficulty?

I can’t do anything about how others feel about me, but I can change my response to the situation. My current behavior can lead me to develop antisocial tendencies and lose the friendships I have. I can try to connect with more people and introducing myself.

What is the difficulty teaching you? 

Looking at this difficulty is forcing me to learn how to be more outgoing and how to deal with weird situations.

16 years old